


First Comes Love

by Tikxy



Series: Late Night Murmurings [2]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Child Death, False Pregnancy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7821958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikxy/pseuds/Tikxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhett doesn’t know if he’s strong enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Comes Love

I feel guilty. _So guilty_. And I know he feels it twice as much. He was the one there. Lying in bed. When our world ended and everything changed, he was the one there.

I want to hold him and hug him and pull him to me, but I know he doesn’t want that right now. So I stand back, forcing myself to smile at him in the mirror as he turns from side to side, running his hands over his distended belly.

I want to curl up and cry but that’s what I’d done when he’d broken down. He’d needed me, but I’d fallen apart too because I needed him. Now both of us were fucked.

“Baby-”

“Could you go out and get some peanut butter?” he interrupts, his grey-blue eyes glowing in the fading light of our bedroom. God he’s beautiful. Grief and even insanity can’t change that.

“I just bought a new jar the other day-”

He walks toward me, his dark hair falling into his eyes. He’d stopped styling it. He’d stopped keeping it up after…Jesus, seems like everything has fallen apart after. I sweep it aside for him because I know he won’t. I let my finger trail down his face to touch the corner of his sweet, sweet lips. I haven’t tasted them in months. He seems averse to it. As if he feels he shouldn’t be allowed to be loved in this manner anymore.

I don’t blame him. I tell him over and over that I don’t blame him for what happened. He doesn’t hear me though, because the voice blaming himself is too loud.

Jesus, Link. What I wouldn’t give to go back to that night. If only I had stayed.

“I ate all of that one.” He rubs a hand down his stomach. “I’m eating for two now.”

My shoulders tremble and I know a sob is coming. But I can’t break in front of him. Not again. That had probably caused the most damage.

I’d found him there. At home. He was on the bed, our son wrapped up tight in his arms. His face a frozen mask of horror, disbelief, and grief.

 _Link?_ I’d asked gently. _Baby, what’s wrong?_

His mouth had opened and closed. His head shifting from side to side as if denying the words he needed to say.

 _Henry?_ I’d stepped forward, gesturing to our sweet little baby boy. Adopted such a short time ago. So small. Seventeen weeks old. Our beautiful, brown-eyed baby boy. _Link…what?_

He’d tilted the baby so I could see his face. So still and cold and stiff and frozen and I couldn’t look anymore so I looked away and broke down. Barely having enough in me to call the police, the ambulance, whoever the fuck had needed to be called. Then I’d pushed myself into the furthest corner of the room and cried until I couldn’t even see straight. I’d felt Link’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t take care of him then. I was having a hard enough time taking care of myself.

“I-” I break off, unable to continue. Those gorgeous baby-blues stare up at me with so much need. Fuck, maybe he’s saner than I am. At least he’s moving on. In _some_ way. I can’t even think about another baby. Of trying to put our family back together. “I’ll grab some in a little bit.”

I reach out and rub his shoulder, feeling some of the tension melt from his body.

“I love you,” I whisper. The therapist said he needs to hear it as much as possible. “I love you…I need you. I love you, baby.”

I step in close, pressing my lips against Link’s temple, smelling the scent of his hair. Even unkempt it still smells great.

“I love you, too,” Link says easily.

“I need you,” I murmur. I need him more than anything at the moment. More than water. More than air. More than my next breath. In some ways I feel I lost him that night too. The night our baby Henry got snatched away from us so suddenly and so cruelly. Link had gone too. To a much darker place where I was forbidden and hesitant to tread.

“Rhett?…”

My grip tightens on him. Wanting to snatch him back. I don’t mean to, but when he’s in my arms I just never want to let go now. “Please, baby. _Please._ I don’t know how much I- I just- Please. Tonight, baby. I want to be close to you again. I want to get so twisted up inside of you that I can’t get out again. Please. I _need_ you.”

I’m crying. I don’t mean to cry. But I can feel the trails hot and heavy down my cheeks and in my beard and dripping into Link’s shirt. I haven’t cried since that night, trying to be strong, but maybe my lack of tears has pushed Link even further away. When I thought it’d make him believe he could hold onto me and cling all the harder, maybe he thought it was me refusing to mourn with him.

“I don’t blame you. I never have. I just…I couldn’t hold you then, baby. You know that.”

I feel Link struggling to pull away from me. He hasn’t talked about Henry since Henry went away. He just cries and cries and refused to eat. Until… a few weeks back. Now he’s living for the child he thinks he carries in his stomach to replace the one who’s left us behind.

“I want to hold you now. We can get through this. We can still-we- I need- I can’t keep coming home to _pain_.”

Link shoves me hard in the chest, and my knees buckled backwards against the bed. I pull him with me and startle when I hear him gasp, a hand clutching his stomach which collided with my knee.

“Our baby!” he cries, his eyes wide and shocked and terrified.

 _No_.

I grab his shoulders. “You’re okay, Link. There _is_ no baby. You’re _okay._ ”

He doesn’t hear me.

“Call the hospital. What if she’s hurt? What if- Please Rhett. I can’t lose this one. I just can’t. I-”

I stroke my hands through his hair, feeling my heart break all over again. I heave a heavy sigh wishing I’d just gone out to get the peanut butter rather than trying to patch us back together. Too soon. _Too soon._

“Alright, baby. I’ll get you to the hospital.”

I roll him gently onto his side then stand before lifting him into my arms. I hear a surprised gasp, then he wraps his arms around my neck and buries his face there. I can feel him trembling.

“You’re going to be okay.” I reassure him. Not sure if what I’m saying is true. Physically, yeah. But mentally? Will he ever?

“The baby?”

There seems to be something hard and hot blocking my throat, but I still manage to get the words out anyway. “She’s going to be fine, baby. I promise you.”

He lifts his head back for a moment, looking into my eyes, his voice tremulous.

“And us?”


End file.
